Colin Butler

Colin Butler was a Conservative Party political operative and public relations firm manager during the late 20th century. Butler was known for his extreme views and his penchant for the use of dirty tricks and slander against political opponents, ruining the careers of Labour politicians Nicky Hutchinson and Eddie Wells with extreme and effective smear campaigns.

Biography
Colin Butler worked for the Conservative Party as a political operative for several years, and he was known for playing "dirty tricks" on Labour Party figures to secure victories for his candidates. During the 1974 United Kingdom general election, he assisted Claudia Seabrook with her campaign for the Tyne Bridge West constituency by running an extreme smear campaign against her Labour rival Nicky Hutchinson; he called him "Red Nicky", accused him of being homosexual, accused him of supporting the IRA, and accused him of being a member of the Trotskyist "Militant" entryist group. While this slander helped to destroy Hutchinson's chances of winning the election, Seabrook had made it clear that she wanted to win because of her policies and not because of dirty tricks, and she responded by firing Butler from her campaign. Butler continued to serve as a Conservative operative, however. By 1987, he had become the head of his own public relations firm, mostly working for house builders and finance companies, helping them agitate to change the laws on public sector finance, to take away local authority powers, and completely privatize the markets and housebuilding. He became rivals with the Labour MP Eddie Wells, who openly voiced his dislike towards Butler and spread slanderous rumors about him, leading to Butler hiring his PR firm associate Francine Volker to help him ruin Wells. Francine became Wells' researcher and had him prepare a false report alleging that 50 Tory MPs were on the payroll of lobbying firms; Butler later revealed to Wells that Francine had been his agent, and Wells was humiliatingly forced to retract his report rather than officially make slanderous accusations. Wells decided to stand down ahead of the general election, and he died of a heart attack shortly afterwards.